


kiss me hard before you go

by craftingdead



Series: charlie will make cd a common tag if it kills them [26]
Category: The Crafting Dead
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Heavy Angst, Love Confessions, redstoner au :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 16:03:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19337863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/craftingdead/pseuds/craftingdead
Summary: When Ghetto was a kid, he jumped off a roof.There was no reason for it; he was eight and the neighborhood kids dared him to. The house of the roof he jumped off had a pool, so they challenged him to climb up and jump into it since they had already been playing around back there in their swimsuits while the kid's mother worked inside on whatever job she held, Ghetto could never remember.He agreed, shimmied up the side of the house, made it to the roof. The pool was, thankfully, surrounded mostly by grass and floaty toys, only a sharp line of concrete leading to the patio. Just as he jumped, some kid screamed, he looked towards it and overshot the jump by about a foot or two. He landed on the grass and broke his leg.Ghetto didn’t scream or cry; his leg was just kinda numb, instead. The kid screamed—not the same kid as before—and ran inside to get his mom.





	kiss me hard before you go

**Author's Note:**

> kiss me hard before you go,  
> summertime sadness.  
> i just wanted you to know,  
> that, baby, you're the best.

When Ghetto was a kid, he jumped off a roof.

There was no reason for it; he was eight and the neighborhood kids dared him to. The house of the roof he jumped off had a pool, so they challenged him to climb up and jump into it since they had already been playing around back there in their swimsuits while the kid's mother worked inside on whatever job she held, Ghetto could never remember.

He agreed, shimmied up the side of the house, made it to the roof. The pool was, thankfully, surrounded mostly by grass and floaty toys, only a sharp line of concrete leading to the patio. Just as he jumped, some kid screamed, he looked towards it and overshot the jump by about a foot or two. He landed on the grass and broke his leg.

Ghetto didn’t scream or cry; his leg was just kinda numb, instead. The kid screamed—not the same kid as before—and ran inside to get his mom. The rest of the kids huddled around him, a girl and a boy or two crying or sniffling.

They told him what an idiot he was at first but then called him “cool as heck!” other than the kids who weren’t afraid to swear. 

“You can see his bone!” a boy screamed, pointing to his leg. Ghetto looked over, eyes widening in alarm, but couldn’t spot any bone through the leg, already bleeding. He caught it on the side of the pool before he rolled into the grass. A long cut ran down his leg, mirroring the broken bone beneath his knee.

The kid’s mom ran out, her kid holding onto her hand and pointing to him and yelling. She screamed, too, and it hurt his head. The kid’s dad came out and picked him up and helped drive him to the hospital while the mom tried to call his parents. 

“They won’t pick up,” he argued, as she tried for the fifth time, “they’re at work. They never pick up when they’re at work. Once, I threw up at school, and even then they didn’t come until the end of the day. They won’t. Pick. Up!”

The kid, his then friend, pointed to his leg and said, “That’s a lot of blood.” It was staining the nice but slightly shaggy seats of the car, bleeding through the towel he was instructed to press to the wound to stop the bleeding.

“Shit,” he said, and the mom yelled at him. There was a lot of blood. It wouldn’t kill him since the morbid kid at school who always talked about death and blood and weird stuff like that had once said that it takes liters of blood loss to kill a man, and he knew how much a liter was, and that sure as hell wasn’t a liter. But it wasn’t enough to kill him. But it still was a lot of blood—the most he had ever seen in one point at one time.

Though that changed, of course—he was a stupid kid, and of course, the whole apocalypse thing happened.

Blood stopped getting to him a while ago. There were a few occasions (staining the floor of their base in Greenfield, Ross coated with it as he proceeded along calmly, the walls of the cells Red’s had transformed, bleeding out from the space between Nick’s collarbone and his chest) where it shook him up but other than that, he was fine.

“Fuck—shit…”

“Sorry, I know this jacket was your favorite…” Nick mumbled in his arms, head resting against his shoulder, scarf hanging limply instead of being carried by whatever breeze was in the air at the time. It was like all his energy, his upbeat nature, his happiness… was just drained out.

“N-no, it’s fine, I have like, ten other jackets that look exactly like this one,” Ghetto reasoned, trying to crack a strained smile. “You always wore it more than I ever did, anyway.”

Nick smiled, just the slightest, before falling back in a coughing fit. Ghetto winced, trying to hurry up his steps, although he knew there was no way he’d make it back in time to the CDC. Nick probably knew too—he had been in the place longer. And Ghetto didn’t even know where in Atlanta he was. God—fuck, this is… he couldn’t do this. Why couldn’t this have waited another day or two? They’ve been gone for a while they—they could’ve gotten picked up by a team searching for them or something—why the fuck NOW?!

“W-when we get back to the CDC, I’ll fucking, bleach this jacket or whatever.” Ghetto picked up his pace. There was a chance they could run into  _ someone, _ and he had to hold onto that. “Unless you never want to wear it again—which is fine! Totally would be understandable, seeing as you coughed up and bled a lot of blood on it. Might bring up bad memories.

“Maybe I’ll just wear one of your ten identical ones,” Nick said, so quietly into his shoulder Ghetto barely picked it up. He was then silent.

“I’ll get ten more, just for you,” Ghetto responded, tightening his grip and feeling his breath catch in his throat. “Twenty, thirty, whatever number you want. Four-twenty? What would you do with four-twenty jackets? Sow them together and make an ultra-jacket or something—”

“Ghetto,” Nick interrupted, tilting his head back to look at him. “We aren’t gonna make it back to the CDC, aren’t we?”

He shook his head, harder than he needed to. Trying to stifle the panic in his voice, Ghetto said, “What? No, we totally are. Are you doubting my running speed? You totally are doubting my running skills. That’s not cool, man, not cool at all.”

Nick laughed quietly, then sighed. “You… you don’t need to lie to me, Ghetto. I know… I know we’re not going to make it back to the CDC. I know what’s going to happen to me, I—” His sentence cut off, voice starting to crack, Nick burying his head into the crook of Ghetto’s shoulder instead.

Ghetto’s steps slowed down, just slightly, and his chest heaved a little. This couldn’t be fucking happening—he refused to let this fucking happen—there was a way, there was someone or—or something they could find that could help him, or… or… or…

“Could we just find a nice place? We’ve been walking for hours, you must be getting tired,” Nick mumbled after a second, snapping Ghetto out of his thoughts.

He bit his lip, then sighed as well. “Okay. Okay, if that’s what you want… I don’t think there are any nice places for miles, with everything breaking the fuck down and whatnot, but I’ll try, if that’s really what you want…” Nick nodded. 

Ghetto scanned the surrounding areas. There was practically nothing—not even that many walkers, surprisingly. The only thing he could see that didn’t look like it was crawling with rats and other bugs or that was destroyed and boarded up was an apartment building or hotel thing, so he headed there. Nick coughed again, his body trembling with every surge, and Ghetto could feel him grow weaker and weaker as he slumped back down, exhausted. He picked up his pace.

Nudging the door open with his foot, he scanned the surrounding area for walkers or other people. There was no one in the immediate vicinity, and he could hear no groans or movement, but he didn’t trust that. 

“Here.” Ghetto laid Nick down against the corner wall, hidden by a short wall extending to separate a waiting area from the main lobby. “Stay here—I mean, uh, I’m going to make sure it’s safe. If you need me or—or if you see anything, just call for me.”

“I already need you,” Nick mumbled, delirium flooding into his voice. 

“I know,” Ghetto responded, “I know you do.” Then, he gave Nick a quick squeeze before straightening and standing up, shrugging his backpack off to the ground and re-retrieving his pistol from it. 

The main area was completely clear, even unnaturally so. Like everything had fled to let them be alone through this time. He searched further down the halls, peered through open doors, but there were still no walkers, or people, or anything. Ghetto sighed, lowering his gun and, for extra measure, shut and locked most of the doors in case there was something he had missed, as well as applying a light barricade to the front entrance and most of the ones in the hall—Nick watched him as he dragged chairs to and from to keep them safe.

“Alright,” he said, kneeling down next to Nick, who immediately climbed up into and curled up in his lap the moment he properly sat down. “We… we should be safe. For as long as we need to be, anyway.”

“My hero,” Nick said, wiping the blood off his face, then wrapping his arms around Ghetto’s neck.

“You are ever so welcome, dearest Prince,” Ghetto responded, deadpan, trying to crack a smile. Nick didn’t, though he looked up at Ghetto warmly and pressed himself closer as Ghetto dropped his pistol to the floor and wrapped his arms around him. “Hey, do you remember that one time in Greenfield.”

Nick cocked his head to the side, though it was sluggish. “What time?”

“That one time when—when AK and Shark were getting chased by walkers—hey, this is funny, don’t give me that look—and instead of circling back, AK led the two of them to the edge of the road, near that one drop, and then proceeded to throw Shark into it and then himself full speed into the water, instead of fucking, choosing a route that wasn’t a dead end?” Ghetto laughed. “I swear, I thought Shark had turned into an actual Shark when we found them—they were absolutely soaked  _ through.” _

Snickering, Nick tucked his face down as Ghetto continued on, describing how “he thought they were gonna get fucking hypothermia and die” and “AK shook his hair out on me and I swore, I was two seconds away from throwing him into the water again, just to teach him a lesson.” He smiled, spreading to his eyes for the first time in what felt like weeks, and Ghetto trailed off, mumbling about how it was so funny, or whatever. 

“I’m gonna miss them,” Nick said, closing his eyes slowly and reopening them tired, weak, glazing in the slightest.

“Why—” Ghetto cut himself off. There was no point in denying it anymore. “Yeah. They’re going to miss you too. It won’t… it won’t be the same without you. I mean, who’s gonna get us out in trouble when we do something Gray totally approves of but doesn’t know yet?”

“I’m gonna miss you most of all.” 

Ghetto pressed his face into Nick’s hair, blinking incoming tears out of his eyes. “I’m going to miss you too. You were my best fucking friend, you know that? You… you…”

“I’m sorry,” Nick whispered, “I’m sorry I never got to tell you so many things. We had so many chances. I’m sorry. I love you.”

“I… I love you too.” Ghetto pulled him in tighter, closer, as far as he could get. “I don’t care if you… if you didn’t mean it like that because I… I fucking love you—I fucking loved you and will love you, and I never told you because I was an idiot who thought he could push it down and ignore it but I never could. I never fucking could. I’m sorry for everything I let happen to you—I’m sorry for believing Red, for believing Cory, for overreacting with Louis, for letting Red lay a single. Fucking. Finger on you for—f-for not spending enough time with you. I’m fucking sorry. I love you. I love you  _ so much.” _

Ghetto pulled his head back, looking down at Nick with… with as much warmth, as much love he could manage, letting out a shaky laugh. “I think Jordan always knew. I think that was why he thought of us as parents.”

Nick leaned in, pulled his arms down from around his neck and cupped Ghetto’s face with his hands. “Yeah,” he breathed, “how else would he have seen us, with the way we acted?”

Ghetto kissed him. Nick’s lips were chapped and weren’t as soft as other people he had kissed before, in the past, but this was the only time he fucking  _ felt  _ something while doing it. He had thought about doing this so many fucking times but—but… Nick smiled against him, tears staining his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, “I wish this didn’t have to happen. I’m sorry. I’m  _ sorry.” _

He reached out for the pistol, grabbing it with a shaky hand. Nick pulled back, eyes fluttering down, sighing as Ghetto raised it up. “I’m sorry,” he said, kissing Nick hard on the mouth, one last time. “I’m sorry,” he said, wrapping a shaking finger around the trigger. “I’m sorry. I love you, I love you, I love you.”


End file.
